A NATION CHALLENGED: THE TRAP; Talks Fail With Taliban Besieged In Kunduz

Talks to secure a peaceful handover of the besieged Taliban-held city of Kunduz collapsed today, setting the stage for a possible battle involving thousands of foreign Taliban troops believed to be trapped in the northern Afghan city.

American B-52's and fighter-bombers struck Taliban positions outside the city for the first time, and Northern Alliance commanders decided that they would move into the city, which its troops had surrounded. The actions followed the breakdown of negotiations between Taliban and Northern Alliance fighters set up to find a way to avert a battle.

Northern Alliance commanders said they hoped that many Taliban troops would join them once the fighting started. But they said a garrison of Taliban fighters from other Muslim lands, whom commanders estimate to number between 3,000 and 6,000, would not be given the opportunity to change sides. The choice for them, they said, will be to go to prison or die on the battlefield.

''The foreigners are between life and death,'' Gen. Daoud Khan said. ''They are desperate. They will try anything.''

''The foreign terrorists should be killed,'' said Mahmood, 41, an alliance officer on the front lines in Bangi. He said about 100 of his friends, both military and civilian, were killed by the Taliban and their foreign supporters in recent years.

The battle for Kunduz, if it comes, could prove to be one of the biggest of the war.

Alliance commanders believe that the city holds the largest concentration of Taliban soldiers left in Afghanistan -- more than 20,000, many of them refugees from defeats elsewhere, and many of them fighters from other Muslim lands. The Taliban garrison in Kunduz has no way out, as alliance commanders say they have cut all the roads leading out of the city.

There were indications that the Taliban soldiers in Kunduz were beginning to crack under the pressure. The alliance said a Taliban commander, Mirza Muhammad Nasri, had agreed to defect with the 1,000 soldiers under his command. Pir Muhammad, an alliance commander here, said Taliban leaders on Wednesday executed five local commanders who were suspected of negotiating with the alliance. Commander Muhammad said that according to Northern Alliance agents in Kunduz, the suspected traitors were hanged in public.

''When we tried to reach them on the radio, no one answered,'' he said.

The looming battle for Kunduz displayed all the attributes of a traditional Afghan test of nerves. General Khan said the alliance would slowly tighten its circle around the city. As his men move in closer, he said, he hoped that they would be able to persuade Taliban commanders to rise up against the others.

You are already subscribed to this email.

General Khan and others said some Taliban commanders and soldiers had given strong indications that they would be willing to change sides. He said he and his lieutenants had spoken to more than 20 Taliban commanders. One, he said, was a senior commander named Haji Omar, who General Khan said had pleaded for time to enable him to persuade others to defect to the alliance. ''If he comes out, a lot of others will follow,'' he said.

The most likely turncoats, he said, were from the Taliban units recruited from northern Afghanistan. Those, he said, were made up of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks, two groups that predominate in the north.

''If they wish to embrace us, then they will be forgiven,'' he said.

The Taliban soldiers most likely to resist, General Khan said, would be those from the southern part of the country where the Taliban originated. Most of those are ethnic Pashtuns, who make up the majority of the Taliban. Unlike most Afghan cities in the north, Kunduz's population is nearly 50 percent Pashtun, suggesting that the Taliban fighters might have substantial public support there.

Then there are the Taliban fighters from foreign lands, most of them young and illiterate soldiers from Muslim countries in the Middle East. There are few credible estimates for the number of foreign soldiers who enlisted with the Taliban, although the alliance maintains jails that teem with captured Pakistanis, Saudis and Chechens. The alliance put several foreign prisoners on display today in Taliqan, which was captured earlier this week.

General Khan said he held out virtually no hope that the foreign fighters believed to be in Kunduz would surrender. Indeed, if the declarations of many alliance troops were credible, the fate that awaits them seems clear.

Commander Muhammad said about 450 hard-core Taliban troops, including many foreigners, barricaded themselves in a mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif after alliance troops moved in last week. They were all killed, he said, in a battle that ended today.

General Khan said that if the foreign soldiers in Kunduz surrendered, they would most likely be imprisoned and tried in a court.